It is known to control manufacturing systems such as semiconductor processing manufacturing systems with computers. Because of the magnitude of information that is necessary to control these systems as well as the distance between devices which are controlled, these systems are generally controlled by mainframe computers.
For example, referring to FIG. 1 (Prior Art), one such semiconductor processing system 10 uses mainframe 11 which is coupled to a plurality of gates 12, e.g., system network architecture (SNA) gateways available from Novell.TM. Corporation of Provo, Utah under the trade designation 3270. Gates 12 are coupled to respective routers 13 to provide separate segments of system 10. The segments are coupled via backbone bus 15.
A plurality of gates 12 are coupled to a respective plurality of communication terminals (CT) 14 which are in turn coupled to the actual semiconductor processing manufacturing devices (MD) 16. The communication terminals 14 and manufacturing devices 16 located between each gate 12 and router 13 provide separate processing portions 18.
Additionally, a gate 12 is coupled to stocker portion 20 of semiconductor processing system 10. Stocker portion 20 includes stocker server 22, as well as a plurality of stocker personal computers (PCs) 24. Stocker PC's 24 are coupled to stockers 26 which provide storage bays for the semiconductor lot boxes and transportation between the storage bays.
Another gate 12 is coupled to analysis portion 30 of semiconductor processing system 10. Analysis portion 30 includes equipment status server 34 which stores and reports on the equipment status and history and trend and engineering analysis (TEA) server 36 which collects and reports on process measurement data.
Another gate 12 is coupled to work station portion 40. Work station portion 40 includes a plurality of work stations 42 which are used to provide visual information to users regarding the condition of manufacturing system 10.